After 3 nights of bad weather, with only a couple of damp laps recorded (with no times), the weather finally looked like it was going to play ball today. We bought some new loctite (see yesterday's post), and made sure that the gear-linkage was going to stay in place come what may. After that, there wasn't really a great deal to do, until 4pm rolled around and it was time to go through scrutineering again.

Everyone knew that this evening was going to have decent weather, and so Parc Ferme was crammed with bikes ready to roll. Many (mostly full-on Superbikes) hadn't yet turned a wheel. We planned to do two laps on the ZX10R, and two on the ZX6R, but we had a serious concern about the 1000 being able to do two laps on one tank of fuel. So we hatched a plan to start on the 10R, pull in after one lap and swap to the 600 for two laps, and then swap back to the 1000, now refuelled, for another lap. In the meantime, I've lined up a 21 litre tank for the ZX10R which we'll fit tomorrow.

Practice started promptly at 6:20pm, and I was quickly out onto Glencrutchery Road to join the session. As before, the bike felt good, and fast, and fun, but this time I felt I was going a fair bit faster. Of course, it's impossible to judge how fast from the saddle, and it was only when the session was over that I saw any times (more later). Still, I managed to catch some other bikes, so I wasn't the slowest. I pulled in at the end of the lap and the 600 was waiting for me to swap straight on to. As on Monday, it felt like a toy after the 1000, but still takes a fair amount of effort to hustle round. On the first lap I didn't see many people, but I got passed a fair bit on the second lap, which always feels bad. The swap back to the 1000 was equally slick, and riding them back to back it was clear that the 1000 was setup better for me, so we need to make some tweaks to the 600.

At the end of the session I was pretty tired - 4 laps back to back is pretty physical. We got the bikes in the awning, cleaned the worst of the flies and road film off them, and then headed back to Ramsey in the van.

It wasn't until I was able to get on the internet that I could find my times. They're not too impressive, but all things considered I'm not going to beat myself up about them - it is like the first night of practice, after all. I managed 111mph on the big bike, and 108mph on the 600. Six years ago my first night's practice time on a 600 was 110mph, so I'm slightly disappointed in that, but then, it was six years ago, and I've not ridden here since.